When interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose took to the stage at the annual parliamentary press gallery dinner last year, the slightly loosened-up audience of scribes braced for a letdown. They had just been treated to an entertaining speech by the country's charismatic new prime minister, including a yoga demonstration by his wife. Ambrose would have her work cut out to win this crowd.

But win it she did with funny jabs at her own party and the other leaders and journalists, to say nothing of a racy joke about her husband. The evening was but one example of how Ambrose has changed the approach and tone of the federal Conservative party since the 2015 defeat of the grimmer, Stephen Harper-led Tories.

In the year and a half that Ambrose led the Official Opposition, she amassed genuine success, worth reviewing now that she has announced she's leaving the federal scene.

First, she held together a dispirited, defeated party that had been rapped by voters for its nasty, negative campaign. When parties lose, they often turn on themselves, and while the Tories faced some soul-searching, Ambrose calmly steered a parliamentary caucus that carried out its opposition work effectively even without a permanent boss.

She did this while a leadership contest was underway, taking several heavy hitters out of the daily lineup. Ambrose's team still asked tough questions, challenged government policy, worked the committees well and championed ideas that will, in 2019, allow voters clear choices.

She supported women -- and women in politics --­ without being strident, showy or quota-driven. The Tory house leader is Candice Bergen; the immigration critic is Michelle Rempel. Before entering the leadership, Lisa Raitt was the Tory finance critic. Ambrose, whose Stornoway parties have included raising resources for women's shelters, championed the rights of Yazidi women and girls, and her private member's bill, supported by the government, requires judges to be thoroughly trained on sexual assault law.

The Tories raised $5.3 million in the first quarter of 2017, ahead of the Liberals. This speaks to a party on stable footing, and Ambrose can take some credit.

She has not been a Liberal in Conservative clothing.

Rather, she has been a down-to-Earth politician who has cried in the House (and who shed some tears Tuesday), done her party proud, and whose record may attract more women into politics. Truly, she won the crowd.